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We're Not Who You Think We Are

Archives for April 2015

Certain Songs #158: The Byrds – “Wild Mountain Thyme”

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Album: Fifth Dimension.

Year: 1966.

A serious contender for The Prettiest Song Ever Recorded (Folk Division), “Wild Mountain Thyme” has of course been recorded dozens and dozens of times. I’ve heard only a fraction of those, but I can’t imagine any of them being more achingly gorgeous that the block vocals / 12-string guitar / soaring strings arrangement that The Byrds pull off here.

That said, I have to give a shout-out to a version of this song that Peter Case performed solo live in the KFSR studios in either 1986 or 1987. I treasured my cassette copy of that show for years. You know, until I lost it. Because I lost nearly all of the cassettes that I treasured in the 1980s, which almost killed me.

On Fifth Dimension, “Wild Mountain Thyme” is filler, for sure. Gene Clark had left the band, and neither McGuinn or Crosby had more than a couple of songs ready to go, and instead of doing Dylan songs (only two of their eight 1960s album didn’t have at least one Dylan song), they decided to do traditional songs that may influenced Dylan, whom in 1966 was taking tradition out into a back alley and beating it to within an inch of its life.

But it’s great filler. And sticking a gorgeous old folk ballad in between a waltz about the Theory of Relativity (or taking acid) (or both!) and a country song about wanting to be abducted by aliens pretty much sets the listener up for the psychedelic madness still to come.

Video for “Wild Mountain Thyme”

Certain Songs #157: The Byrds – “5D (Fifth Dimension)”

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Album: Fifth Dimension.

Year: 1966.

Here is one of my most indefensible of all of the indefensible positions I will take while doing the Certain Songs project: Fifth Dimension is my favorite Byrds album. And it’s not even close. Well, kinda close, cos I also love Younger Than Yesterday.

On the face of it, I realize that’s ludicrous. Fifth Dimension is a mess: they’d lost their primary songwriter in Gene Clark, so it features two instrumentals (if you count that song about flying in a lear jet); an alien abduction song; the mandated-by-1960s-law cover of “Hey Joe;” two songs written by “Traditional,” and – worst of all – four songs co-written by “David Crosby.” 

But of course the instrumentals are charming; the alien abduction song was a single; “Hey Joe” is fun and energetic; one of the “Traditional” songs is one of the Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded and one of the David Crosby co-writes …well, we will get to that in a day or two.

Then there is the title track, which is the first Byrds song credited soley to Jim McGuinn, who starts it while falling through infinity all by his lonesome …

Oh how is it that I could come out to here and be still floating
And never hit bottom and keep falling through
Just relaxed and paying attention
All my two dimensional boundaries were gone I had lost to them badly
I saw the world crumble and thought I was dead
But I found my senses still working

As McGuinn continues waltzing through time and space, he picks up David Crosby and Chris Hillman, who chime in about halfway through, their eternal harmonies also lyrically apropos:

And I opened my heart to the whole universe and I found it was loving
And I saw the great blunder my teachers had made
Scientific delirium madness

Yes, it sounds like hippie-dippie bullshit – OK, it is hippie-dippie bullshit – but it’s also some of the best American psychedelic music ever made. Even if McGuinn has always insisted it was about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and not LSD.  Sometimes a trip through the fifth dimension is just a trip through the fifth dimension!

Besides, had Einstein still been alive, he probably would stopped everything else he was doing in order to write the Theory of David Crosby’s Harmony Vocal on the Phrase “Stilllllll Floating” Near The End of “5D.” My understanding is that Neil DeGrasse Tyson is going to dedicate a whole new episode of Cosmos to trying to explain just how significant that harmony is.

And at the end, when Van Dyke Parks chimes in with an ethereal pipe organ underneath McGuinn’s guitar solo, it sounds like the music St. Peter is blasting from the Pearly Gates in order to remind people what’s at stake there. You get in, you get to hear The Byrds for eternity.

Fan-Made Video for “5D (Fifth Dimension)”

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #156: The Byrds – “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”

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Album: Mr. Tambourine Man.

Year: 1965.

In the beginning was The Byrds.  Before Big Star. Before Tom Petty. Before R.E.M. Before The Smiths or The Church or any of the countless bands that picked up a 12-string Rickenbacker (what garage-rock enthusiast Craig Sullivan was fond of calling “the slow guitar”), found a couple of folks who could sing well together and started writing songs, it was The Byrds. 

Because it was in the Byrds who was first created maybe my favorite sound in all of popular music. Like, have you heard last year’s Real Estate album? It’s got that sound.

That sound – McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker; the harmonies of McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark; even Michael Clarke’s precise drums (or in the case of the early records, whichever studio pro actually played) – is a sound that I will chase to the ends of the earth. It’s a sound that defines The Byrds so much to my ears that I never even paid attention to the fact that Gene Clark wrote the lions share of songs on their first two albums.

Which is fine: I love their McGuinn-oriented psychedelia the best anyways, but even still, it’s impossible to resist “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” their best early original song, and the first indication that they were more than just a (great!) Dylan cover band.

Not only does it have a catchy riff grounding the song, the call-and-response vocals of the later verses and the chorus are utterly textbook, and the relatively long galloping guitar solo leaps out from the folk-rock framework and takes the song to a completely different place.

Video for “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”

Certain Songs #155: Buzzcocks – “What Do You Know?”

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Album: Parts 1 – 3 EP
Year: 1980

As the final release of the original incarnation of the Buzzcocks, the Parts 1 – 3 EP was the sound of a band that really didn’t know what they wanted to do anymore beyond release singles. So it was mostly experimental expansions to their basic sound – or copies of other people’s sounds (“Airwaves Dream” is pure Joy Division) – that really didn’t go anywhere. 

With one exception: the glorious Psychedelic Furs pastiche “What Do You Know?”, the last single they ever released in their original run.

Over the normal roaring guitars augmented with a saxophone that might as well have been the Little Furry People’s Duncan Kilburn (even though Wikipedia says it wasn’t), Pete Shelley is once again talking about belief:

Everything happens
Don’t look for patterns
You only perceive what you believe
You need only believe to believe

Meanwhile, Steve Diggle is questioning him at every turn:

What do you know?
What do you know? 
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww?
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww?

Maybe he’s driven crazy by the sax, which is finding it’s way into every available space, but as the song builds and builds, Shelley’s getting more and more hysterical. At the end, it’s a call-and-response between Diggle’s calmly insistent question and Shelley’s increasingly unhinged answers:

What do you know?
(There’s no turning back now)
What do you know?
(I’m under attack now)
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwww?
(I see the skies are open)
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwww?
(And I hear the word spoken)
What do you know?
What do you know?
What do you knowwwwwwwwwww?
(You only perceive what you believe)
What do you knowwwwwwwwwww?
(You need only believe to believe)

By the time that Shelley has gotten to the point where he’s explaining that you on need only to believe to believe, his voice has gotten so cracked and broken with frustration at being questioned that he’s singing in a register that he’s never even come close to hitting before or since.

And of course, the question gets the last word, as it damn well should.

What do you know?
What do you know?
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww?
What do you knowwwwwwwwwwwwww?

And the only thing that I do know is that if it wasn’t for “I Believe,” this would be my favorite Buzzcocks song.

“What Do You Know”

“What Do You Know” performed live

Every Certain Song Ever
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

Certain Songs #154: Buzzcocks – “I Believe”

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Album: A Different Kind of Tension
Year: 1979

Singles Going Steady casts such a titanic shadow that people might forget that along with all of those amazing singles, the Buzzcocks recorded three full albums during their initial run. Of course, people are forgiven for that because only one of those albums is truly excellent: 1979?s A Different Kind of Tension.

Like their previous albums – Another Music in a Different Kitchen and Love Bites – A Different Kind of Tension went beyond just doing three-minute pop songs and dabbled with artier, more experimental stuff.  Sure, they still had the pop song confectionery, but they also stretched out in terms of song structure, production values and length.  Which is why their greatest song – perhaps the greatest song to come out of U.K. Punk (and yes, that includes “Complete Control” and “Anarchy in the U.K.”) – is the 7-minute long “I Believe.”

If you asked me to list the things that I believed in, this epic anthem would be near the top of the list. It’s

Without even a riff to establish it, Pete Shelley just leaps in:

In these times of contention, it’s not my intention to make things plain
I’m looking through mirrors to catch the reflection that can’t be mine
I’m losing control now, I’ll just have to slow down a thought or two
I can’t feel the future and I’m not even certain that there is a past

Over a roaring punk rock background punctuated by Steve Garvey’s bass, the verses of “I Believe” describe a kind of dark night of the soul. This is countered by the chorus, during which Shelley reminds himself of who he is and what he believes while Steve Diggle’s guitar rings with assent:

I believe in perpetual motion
And I believe in perfect devotion
I believe in, I believe in
I believe in the things I’ve never had
And I believe in my mum and my dad
And I believe in, I believe in

So you think well, as long he he can remember what he believes, everything is going to be alright. Whew! Which is where the kicker comes in. With Diggle’s guitar still ringing with assent, Shelley pulls out the rug:

There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!

Whoa! What the hell was that? Because before you have time to even think about the implications of “there is no love in this world anymore” he’s back to another verse and another chorus, and holy shit, there it is again!

There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!

OK, that’s fine. I can deal with that. He’s just letting off some steam, it doesn’t have any great existential meaning or anything.  I got it now. No worries.  So just when you figure out how you think the song is going to go for the rest of the way – maybe there will be a guitar solo to end it, Shelley sings the last chorus:

I believe in original sin
And I believe what I believe in
Yes I believe in, I believe in
I believe in the web of fate
And I believe, I’m goin’ to be late
So I’ll be leavin’, what I believe in

After that, with three minutes still left in the song, “I Believe” quadruples down and leaves just about every other song ever in the fucking dust, with 5, 10, 15, 1,000,000 repetitions of its coda. The song fades, so as far as I’m concerned it’s fucking infinite – somewhere Pete Shelley is still singing it – and so while it’s always always changing, each repetition is deepening and darkening that one central message: 

There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!! 
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!! 
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!! 
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!! 
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!     
There a-is a-no a-love a-in a-this a-world a-anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!  
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre! 
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!

Trust me, screaming along with this song at the top of your lungs when you’re driving home from a failed attempted to woo somebody, or maybe you just got broken up with, or maybe you’re just sad because you’re not in any position to get your heart broken by any specific person, trust me, screaming along with this song at the top of your lungs for just about any reason is so fucking cathartic. 

There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!
There is no love in this world anymorrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!

Back in the 80s & early 90s, you might have caught me  – along with The Replacements’ “Unsatisfied” or Hüsker Dü’s “Keep Hanging On” – singing this at the top of my lungs at inopportune moments trying to drown out a blasting cassette while driving my car home with tears in my eyes.

Video for “I Believe”

Certain Songs #153: Buzzcocks – “Why Can’t I Touch It?”

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Album: Singles Going Steady
Year: 1979

Totally influenced by reggae – Steve Garvey’s huge bass line is the driver of the entire song – but not sounding a lick like it, the stellar b-side (to “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays”) “Why Can’t I Touch It?” is my favorite song on Singles Going Steady.

Like so many great Buzzcocks songs, “Why Can’t I Touch It?” lyrically has one thing on its mind:

Well it seems so real I can see it
And it seems so real I can feel it
And it seems so real I can taste it
And it seems so real I can hear it
So whyyyyyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyy can’t I touch it?
So whyyyyyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyy can’t I touch it?

That’s pretty much the extent of the words: Pete Shelley only has four senses working overtime, when he needs the fifth for ecstasy. But this song isn’t really about the words, it’s about the big groovy beat that Garvey & John Maher create and what the guitars of Shelley & Steve Diggle do over that beat.

In between those verses all of that frustration that Shelley is singing about gets worked out via their battling guitars. Pete’s in one speaker & Steve is in the other, and those guitars tease, taunt, circle each other, shove, back away, fight. retreat, and generally perform an exquisite lover’s dance.

You can almost see Shelley & Diggle staring each other down in the studio during this song, each one daring the other to try something else until Maher just says “fuck it” and ends the song. At 6:31, “Why Can’t I Touch It” seems like it ends wayyy too soon.  Why maybe is why Shelley couldn’t touch it in the first place.

“Why Can’t I Touch It?

The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

Certain Songs #152: Buzzcocks – “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”

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Album: Singles Going Steady
Year: 1978

It’s either late 1980 or early 1981, and I’m feeling depressed about something or other. Probably an unrequited crush, because that could have been my major at Fresno City College.  So I decided to do what I did then: go to Tower Records.  

In this particular case, I didn’t know what I was looking for. But I knew that I wanted to try something that I’d never ever heard even a note of, and I knew that it had to be punk or post-punk, as I was slowily – with the great help of Trouser Press, Musician and Creem (since this was back during the time that music blogs were known as “magazines”) – working my way through the more critically-acclaimed music of the late 70s & early 80s.

And – I actually remember this – I remember telling myself that maybe the Buzzcocks compilation with the cool cover was the right combination of new and familiar to snap me out of my doldrums.  Said compilation, of course, was the now-immortal Singles Going Steady.

And, yeah, my doldrums were snapped before I’d even flipped the album over. How could it not be?

Look, I know that it’s a singles compilation, and therefore shouldn’t “count,” but fuck that: Singles Going Steady is as unified sounding as any album ever and doubles as an amazing greatest hits, to boot. Pete Shelley knew what he wanted to say, he and Steve Diggle knew how they wanted it to sound, and along with crack rhythm section of Steve Garvey & John Maher, they applied that knowledge for 16 gloriously prescient punk-pop songs..

And the most glorious (of the A-sides) (barely, over “Orgasm Addict” and “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays”)  is probably the best-known: “Ever Fallen in Love (With Some You Shouldn’t’ve)” is simultneously as perfect as punk rock gets and as perfect as pop music gets. The verses are dominated up by dueling guitars and chattering drums, while the chorus builds and builds and builds, breaking up the title phrase into a zillion different pieces.

Ever fallen in love
with someone
Ever fallen in love
in love
with someone
Ever fallen in love
(loooooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvve)
in love
with someone
you shouldn’t’ve fallen in love with?

Well yeah. And of course, it’s so universal that it actually just barely missed the top 10 in the U.K., thereby making suspicious everybody who didn’t understand why not only you could have a huge pop song with big punk rock guitars, but why you should have a huge pop song with big punk rock guitars.

Not here of course. Not for decades, but the sonic template was set right here, with the Buzzcocks.

“Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)”

“Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” performed live in 1978

“Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)” performed live in 2016

The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page

Certain Songs #151: Burning Sensations – “Belly of the Whale”

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Album: Burning Sensations EP.

Year: 1983.

In the year or so before Fresno’s indie scene well and truly exploded, one of the most popular bands around were a new wave cover band called Aqua Bob. Made up of a bunch of terrific musicians – many of whom I had weird connections with outside of the music scene (because Fresno) – Aqua Bob had no interest beyond entertaining whomever happened to show up to wherever they were playing that particular night, and so their song selection tended to be energetic and danceable. 

Which was fine, but it meant that I loved some of the songs they played, while others … not so much.  For example, when they played Oingo Boingo, it was time for me to go get another beer, but when they played XTC it was time to put that beer down and sing along.

 And when they played “Belly of the Whale,” it was time to get on the dance floor. Because the calypso-flavored “Belly of the Whale” is quintessential California new wave.

Yes, it’s filled with weird instruments that probably shouldn’t be there – like that synth that is probably supposed to represent a whale’s cry – and features a weird meandering sax solo in the middle, but when the calypso restraint of the verses shift gears into the high-powered, insanely catchy chorus, it’s pop music dynamics 101. And I’m singing:

Ohhhhh-ohhhhh–ohhhhhh–ohhhh
I feel like Jonah in the belly of the whale

And Burning Sensations knew it as well:  that’s why the the music of the final chorus starts, but they play a few measures before the singing comes in. It’s a tease, and an acknowledgement that we all want to sing along with that chorus one last time.

Music video for “Belly of the Whale”

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #150: Built to Spill – “The Plan (Live)”

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Album: Live

Year: 1999

I’m not sure why I only as opposed to totally love Built to Spill. I mean, Doug Martsch is a Certified Guitar God who uses his talents to find cool weird noises to play as opposed to racing every song to the end. And anytime I concentrate on what he’s doing, I walk away completely impressed. So I guess that I probably don’t connect with the context of that guitar playing: the songs he writes.

That’s on me, but it also makes a song like “The Plan” doubly frustrating:  it’s the perfect example of what can happen when he writes a song that I love. Like “The Plan,” which on Keep It Like a Secret,” packs in about as many guitar hooks per square inch as, say, “There’s A Reason” from Tom Verlaine’s Dreamtime. 

But on the live album, not only are they able to recreate all of those hooks, Martsch eschews the slowdown closing for a long, gorgeous guitar solo that takes the song into a completely new direction, transforming it from near-anthem to full anthem.

“The Plan” performed live in 1999

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

“”

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #149: Buffalo Tom – “Mountains of Your Head”

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Album: Let Me Come Over.

Year: 1992.

Especially in the late 80s and early 90s, I was always a sucker for folks mining the musical vein pioneered by Hüsker Dü

– fast, catchy punk-pop played by a power trio. Obviously, as the years progressed and we went from Moving Targets to Dinosaur Jr. to Buffalo Tom to Goo Goo Dolls to Green Day to Blink-182, the law of diminishing returns kicked in even as sales got bigger, but every single one of the aforementioned bands stuck at least one song into my love zone.

(And by the way, while I came up with that particular progression of bands off of the top of my head, subsequent research revealed that the AllMusic biography of Moving Targets – who were pretty damn close to the first picking up what the Hüskers were laying down – was written by Buffalo Tom’s guitarist/singer Bill Janovitz, who also wrote the 33 1/3 book for Exile on Main St.)

In the case of Buffalo Tom – who where a pretty good singles band throughout their initial run  – I have an unexplained love for their 1992 album, Let Me Come Over, which tossed more than a few slower ones and acoustic guitars into the mix, and was incredibly tuneful throughout. Energetic numbers like like “Saving Grace” and “Darl” wouldn’t have felt out of place on Candy Apple Grey, and they sounded even better in early 1992.

Best of all was “Mountains of Your Head,” which dug its way into my heart with a guitar hook that I’ll be able to sing for you for the rest of my life, even if I’m still not sure what the song’s about. And actually, as far as I’m concerned, “Mountains of Your Head” is about the reappearance of that hook after Bill Janovitz sings:

What’s on your mind?
If it’s on your tongue, you should speak
Speeeeeeeeeeeak!

And I’m guessing that Janovitz got that as well: the last minute of the song is basically the guitar hook repeated over and over again, overlaid with piano, what sounds like mandolin, and what I think are steel drums or marimbas or some other musical percussion.  It’s rough and gorgeous all at the same time.

Video for “Mountains of Your Head”

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever